SANTA BARBARA, Ca- The Santa Barbara County sheriff strongly denied on Wednesday that Michael Jackson had been roughed up by jailers during his arrest and threatened to press charges against him for making a false accusation against an officer.

The sheriff, Jim Anderson, said he asked the state attorney general to investigate the accusations Mr. Jackson made in an interview broadcast on Sunday on the CBS program “60 Minutes.”

Mr. Jackson was treated “with the utmost respect and courtesy” during his arrest on Nov. 20 on suspicion of child molesting and was “in no way manhandled or abused,” Sheriff Anderson said at a news conference.

The sheriff said Mr. Jackson had raised no complaints during the process, thanked the authorities when it was over, whistled and sang during the ride to jail and replied, “Wonderful,” when asked at one point how he was doing.

Sheriff Anderson said he considered Mr. Jackson’s accusations in the interview to be a formal citizen’s complaint. He said that if the attorney general found Mr. Jackson’s accusations to be groundless, he would file a misdemeanor complaint against Mr. Jackson for making a false report.

Mr. Jackson, 45, who has said he is not guilty of the molesting charges, said in the interview that he was bruised and his shoulder dislocated because of jailers’ rough treatment and that he was locked in a feces-smeared restroom for 45 minutes after he asked to use the toilet.

The sheriff said that it was not a restroom but an empty holding cell big enough for seven people and that it had been cleaned just before Mr. Jackson asked to use it.

Mr. Jackson’s lawyer, Mark Geragos, said after the sheriff’s news conference that his client “absolutely” stood by his accusations and that the idea of seeking criminal charges for a false report “shows another serious flaw in their knowledge of the law.”